I am an old iron draw pin. Some might say I have an ignominious past and others may not know what a draw pin is. I’ll try to explain my use as well as a piece of old iron can. When a tractor is to be hooked to a wagon or spreader the hole in the wagon tongue is lined up to correspond with the hole in the tractor draw bar. Then it is my turn to be dropped through the holes. I tie the two together so the farm work can proceed. I had been forgotten for more than a half century. A Stone Arabia man named Skip spotted me hanging back of the once used horse stalls in the old Nellis Farm. I know I am just a hasbeen now since I am worn, bent and covered with rust and whitewash.
How well I remember my beginning. Before I came onto the scene a common bolt was used for a draw pin. The bolt head was small and hard to grasp in unhooking especially in cold weather. Skip had just come to the farm in August. Winter was approaching. A small stone building back of the big farm house was made into a blacksmith shop. Noon hours and spare time, which wasn’t too plentiful, was used to forge useful and sometimes not so useful things. Naturally as a draw pin with a large eye to grasp I was to be really useful. I was made from a piece of old silo rod about three quarter inch in diameter. I was cut off to about twenty two inches. I was heated to red hot in the forge, my end was chamfered and my eye was formed over the anvil horn. In the beginning I was straight. During long hard use I wasn’t straight anymore.
In my present condition most people would not have kept me but I’m glad that Skip found and saved me. Someone may glance my way from time to time and wonder about my span in time. Probably I’ll yet end up in the scrap iron pile but for now I’m a reminder of a bygone time that lingers in the memory of my maker.
